Council to take legal action over plans by hospital to close fertility services

A North East council is to take legal action in the High Court against a hospital trust over its plans to close licensed fertility services in the town.

Members of Hartlepool Borough Council’s Audit & Governance Committee took the decision after a meeting on 26 February attended by the medical director and a lawyer for the North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust.

The committee also decided to call an extraordinary meeting of Hartlepool’s full council with a view to referring the trust’s approach to the matter to the Secretary of State for Health, Jeremy Hunt.

This referral, which can only be done through full council, followed the failure of the chairman and chief executive of the trust to attend this meeting and a previous one scheduled earlier in February.

The Audit & Governance Committee went on to decide that the hospital’s governors should be ordered to attend one of its meetings to explain the behaviour of the trust’s chairman and chief executive.

Speaking ahead of last Friday’s meeting, committee chair Cllr Ray Martin-Wells said the hospital trust had a legal duty to attend under relevant regulations.

He added: “We have recently received notification from the trust’s lawyers that they wish to formally consult on the planned closure through a joint committee involving Hartlepool, Stockton and Durham Councils.

“However, we have written a letter from the council’s Chief Solicitor on the advice of a senior barrister indicating that in order for this to be considered by the committee, the trust must rescind their earlier decision on closure of the fertility unit, revoke redundancy notices issues to staff and cease negotiations with trade unions. Should they fail to do so, then the council would explore its options.

“The time has come for the hospital trust to realise that the council’s Audit & Governance Committee is not a talking shop and has teeth which we are prepared to use, and the trust should be prepared for that.”

The council said that at an earlier meeting of the Audit & Governance Committee (on 5 February), the North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust sent a legal representative to request an adjournment because they were not happy that the council had invited former Trust employee Dr Mohammed Menabawey to the meeting – the consultant who helped set the fertility unit up in the early 90s – because of concerns about impartiality.



Local Government Lawyer has approached the trust for comment. However, the trust has blamed difficulties in recruiting embryologists for its proposed closure of services.